Joy Woods is perfectly marvellous casting in 'Cabaret'

Joy Woods is one of Broadway’s most exciting new stars. Now she’s taking London by storm in Rebecca Frecknall’s production of Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club.

Summary

• Joy Woods is starring in Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club alongside Jamie Muscato
• She plays the role of Sally Bowles in Rebecca Frecknall's production
• Woods's other credits include Gypsy and The Notebook on Broadway

The last few years have been a whirlwind for Joy Woods. The 26-year-old has been solidly booked since leaving college early to star in the 2019 Off-Broadway revival of Little Shop of Horrors, later joining musical juggernaut SIX as Catherine Parr, before originating the role of Middle Allie in The Notebook and reimagining Louise in the Audra McDonald-led Gypsy revival. “I feel like I'm still catching up and learning things that you would have learned in college, but I’m doing it on the job,” she says. “It was just one thing after the other, so I’m grateful — and sleepy.”

Woods had originally set aside this summer to recuperate after such an intense spell. Interestingly, she had applied for Rebecca Frecknall’s multi-Olivier Award-winning production of Cabaret when it opened on Broadway in 2024, so when they circled back to Woods for the West End production, her initial reaction was that she needed to rest. But her agent “put his dad hat on” and told her she needed to take this opportunity, and she’s thrilled that he did. “He was right — what a group of people, what a town, what a show to be a part of. I’m learning so much about myself. I feel fully replenished.”

She continues: “Cabaret is such a timeless show because no matter where you put it, who you put it in front of, who you put inside of it, the musical is always going to be about how humans engage with the truth. That’s what all good art does.” Woods loves Kander and Ebb’s music — “all of the songs are earworms” — and wakes up singing the lyric “a pineapple for me!” from “It Couldn’t Please Me More”.

“I had no idea how much I needed this for my spirit,” she says, before explaining how vital musical director Ben van Tienen and associate director Tom Hughes have been for guiding her through the rehearsal process. “I was saying, ‘Treat me as soy, and then tofu, and then perhaps add a bit of heat on the tofu, and then seasoning.’ We are going to build this so slowly. They were so amenable to that, and I feel like we built something really cool — something that feels like mine, which I'm proud of.”

Woods only had a couple of weeks to pack up her life before coming to London to star in Cabaret alongside Jamie Muscato as the Emcee, but says that she does some of her best work when under pressure. It’s a mentality that feels fitting for her character Sally Bowles, the starlet at the heart of Kander and Ebb’s musical about the growing threat of Nazism during 1930s Berlin. Does she share any similarities with the free-spirited Sally? “We can throw this into a therapy session if you really want to,” she says with her characteristic good-natured sense of humour. “Being Sally is such a good mirror to remind me of all the facets of being human [...] I like to think of Sally as a tornado, just as much as Mama Rose [in Gypsy] was. There’s lots to play with in a tornado. I’m looking forward to being in that whirlpool,” she says.

A Little Shop of Horrors and Cabaret connection is beginning to develop: like Woods, The Handmaid’s Tale star Madeline Brewer and Euphoria’s Maude Apatow have both starred as Sally and the kind-hearted flower shop clerk Audrey in the two musicals. Does Woods think there’s a reason for this? “Audrey and Sally are both women who navigate surviving,” she says. “Usually we see lots of characters of strong women who are empowered, and finding themselves and having self-actualisation moments. I think Audrey and Sally are alike because they don’t need to have that moment to have an arc. We meet them in the centre of their state of survival.”

Woods became the first Black actor to star as Audrey full-time in Little Shop. She originated the role of Middle Allie — who was played by Rachel McAdams in the film — and she was also the first Black performer to take on Louise in Gypsy on Broadway. Reflecting on this, she says: “I’ve been very lucky that almost every role I’ve done so far was originally played by someone who did not look like me.” When she was in school, she remembers hearing about these shows that were put on a high pedestal and seeing clips in her musical theatre film classes. But she always thought: “I don't really see anyone that looks like me, so that's probably not something that's going to be on my radar.” She continues: “Then Gypsy happened, and I should’ve known better!”

Still, she is glad that she hasn’t been able to develop pre-conceived ideas about how these classic roles should be portrayed. Woods hadn’t seen this production of Cabaret before being cast, and believes this is a good thing as she may have got in her head about it. Ahead of starting performances, however, she has seen Matt Willis and Katie Hall in the show six times because she learns a lot by watching. She’s keen to point out that “the show that opened is not the show that's running right now. It's always dependent on who's in it, and maybe [as a performer] you're standing six inches away from where it was originally set. That creates a whole different show when you put 300 of those little shifts together.”

Apart from a concert performance of Jason Robert Brown’s Songs for a New World, which she starred in alongside other Broadway titans like Jordan Fisher, Shoshana Bean and Tituss Burgess last year, Woods is making her debut in London. But it is unlikely to be the first time musical theatre fans have come into contact with her, thanks to bootlegging on social media. In particular, her performance of “My Days” in The Notebook set the internet alight, amassing millions of views on TikTok. “Growing up as a child of the internet, it's hard to scroll your ‘for you’ page and then see your face,” she admits. Woods says that blocking out the noise of social media is “in process” but recognises “it’s a human task, rather than an actor’s”.

She believes that her biggest challenge with Cabaret will be switching off from the heaviness of the subject matter. “It’s going to be hard to take it off at the end of the day,” she says, before reminiscing about her time on Gypsy. “There were days when I would just leave feeling so heavy.” Woods learned a lot from her co-star McDonald, stating that she “led by example every day”. The Tony Awards season was intense but she says “If I was ever tired, I would wipe the crust out of my eyes, put on my costume, and go to work. Audra’s here, so let me do it too. There’s a level of resilience that comes with that.”

Woods recognises that the subject matter of Cabaret is far heavier than Gypsy, and believes it is important to create a disconnect with her character when she is offstage — “the second I step out of the building, Sally is left inside”. How will she unwind at the end of the day? With some Donna Summer, a Red Stripe beer, and the “good London summer air”.

Following her run in Cabaret and a concert at Cadogan Hall, Woods’s next project is the pop-rock musical Galileo, which brings the historical story of Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei to the Broadway stage. “It’s got some really gnarly music, juicy scenes, and wonderful people working on it,” she says. Woods is ready to try something completely new, and isn’t too concerned about stretching her voice with a new rock style — “I’ve put a lot of miles on my throat pretty early on”. She’s also excited to be part of something from its development days, having joined during workshops in 2023. As for the future, Woods says she is “grateful to learn new things” and “tread unchartered waters”.

“Hopefully after Galileo I can go to bed. But if something comes up that I must do, I will do it, and I will sleep when I’m dead.” Based on her success so far, something tells me she won’t be getting much sleep in the years to come.

Book Cabaret tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

This article will appear in the July issue of London Theatre Magazine.

Photo credit: Joy Woods in Cabaret. (Photo by Marc Brenner). Inset: in Little Shop of Horrors, Gypsy and Cabaret. (Courtesy of productions)